You have to admire the exhaustive nature with which the author seems to have taken on most of modern society's taboo subjects.

It really is a rotten thing that Mr. Cook died when he did. It seems that he had some great plans in the works for how his series would develop, and my god, the man could write. Ten novels in six years is nothing to sneeze at, particularly when the output of a lot of other fantasy authors is distressingly slow. I'd like to think, though, that it at least made him happy that one of his books was getting republished.

P.S.: I hope I'm not the only one on this board who likes David Eddings. Perhaps I'm not the most discerning reader, but I didn't think that the plots from The Belgariad and the Elenium were that similar. They both revolved around quests for magical objects. So did the Lord of the Rings, and countless other stories.

It really is a rotten thing that Mr. Cook died when he did. It seems that he had some great plans in the works for how his series would develop, and my god, the man could write. Ten novels in six years is nothing to sneeze at, particularly when the output of a lot of other fantasy authors is distressingly slow. I'd like to think, though, that it at least made him happy that one of his books was getting republished.

His illness and subsequent death from it were certainly regrettable. But his interest in writing further novels in this setting, had long since waned with the decrease in sales and subsequent ending of his publishing contract. A long time before his illness and death. Decades before. Even if he were still with us, he would not be writing any more.

As far as his productivity, there is a degree of overlap in his novels. While I am not a writer of stories, I do create other content, and that removes some degree of the work involved in creating multiple products. I expect it helped him with his ten novel output. That and the fact that two or three of them felt like he was phoning it in.